COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber has stated that, “in a pragmatic, just and well-managed energy transition, we must be laser focused on phasing out fossil fuel emissions while phasing and scaling up viable, affordable zero-carbon alternatives”, Climate Home News reports. The comment is significant because Al Jaber, besides being head of the world’s major annual climate diplomacy summit, is also an oil company chief executive and a representative of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of the world’s largest oil-and-gas producers. However, Climate Home News notes that Al Jaber left a “loophole” in his comments by using the word “emissions”, as this could be interpreted as continuing to use fossil fuels while removing the resulting carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere afterwards. This is also how Bloomberg interpreted the comment, which was delivered to climate ministers from around the world at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin. It notes that Al Jaber’s comment “leav[es] the door open for the continued use of fossil fuels while ramping up technologies to capture the carbon pollution produced from burning them”. According to the Associated Press, campaigners at the meeting have called for “a global deadline for phasing out fossil fuels and ways of increasing aid to poor countries hit by global warming”. It notes their concerns that parties such as the UAE, the US and the EU back carbon capture as “a means of allowing oil and gas extraction to continue or even expand”, despite the technologies involved being largely unproven at scale. The Times says observers accused Al Jaber of “double speak” after NGO analysis showed that his own oil company, the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), is planning a significant expansion of fossil fuels this decade. Another Associated Press article reports that Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, also raised the issue of a global target for renewable energy in her speech to ministers at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue. The goal of COP28 “must be to ring in the end of the fossil fuel age”, she said.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Baerbock also announced that wealthy nations are on track this year to meet their $100bn climate finance pledge to developing countries, which they were due to deliver three years ago. Climate Home News reports on comments from Al Jaber, who blamed rich nations’ “dismal” failure to meet the climate finance goal for “holding up” progress in negotiations. The Independent also carries these comments from the COP28 president, who told attendees at the event in Berlin that “trust is low” in climate negotiations. The news website adds that “developing economies say they cannot afford to cut carbon emissions without more support from the rich nations responsible for most of the greenhouse gases heating the planet”. In setting out his agenda for COP28 at the event, the Financial Times says Al Jaber announced he would focus on “mobilising” private finance and the reform of international finance institutions, in order to “supercharge” climate funds. 

In an interview with Reuters, Republic of Congo environment minister Arlette Soudan-Nonault calls for multilateral financial institutions, such as the World Bank, to simplify procedures for issuing credits in the sovereign carbon market, to help grow her nation’s GDP by up to 40% and fund its energy transition. As it stands, countries are being pushed into using the voluntary carbon credits market, which is an “unregulated Wild West”, Soudan-Nonault tells the newswire.

In more news from the Petersberg conference, the Guardian reports that Al Jaber has also announced that COP28 will also be the “first COP to dedicate a day to health and the first to host a health and climate ministerial”.

The US Supreme Court has indicated that it “may be ready to overturn a powerful tool that helps agencies like [the] EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] defend their rules against legal attack”, according to E&E News. The so-called “Chevron deference” gives government agencies the power to interpret ambiguous laws and, if it is overturned, US conservatives will have a “significant weapon” to use against government regulations, the news website explains. This is significant for US climate action as, with a “calcified Congress”, Joe Biden’s administration has leaned heavily on such agencies to carry out its climate agenda, the article adds. CNN reports that this case revolves around herring fishermen in the Atlantic who are in a dispute with the National Marine Fisheries Service. The decision by the Supreme Court to take this up means they will reconsider the 1984 case that gives the Chevron deference its name – Chevron vs Natural Resources Defense Council – the news website continues. It adds that the Chevron deference has long been viewed with a “sceptical eye” by conservatives, who say it gives agencies too much power. An article on SCOTUS blog reports that “some members of the court’s conservative majority have been critical of the Chevron doctrine in recent years”, including Justice Clarence Thomas who “has been among the doctrine’s most vocal critics”. Politico notes that the move could complicate the administration’s efforts to tackle climate change via regulation, “including possibly derailing the EPA’s push to mitigate carbon emissions from the electricity and transportation sectors – the two highest polluting industries in the US”. It also points out that the news comes on the heels of last year’s ruling in West Virginia vs EPA, in which the Supreme Court decided that Congress must clearly authorise agencies to act on issues of economic and political significance. This too could be used to “strike down regulations”, Politico states. Axios quotes Michael Burger, executive director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, who says scaling back the Chevron deference “could be a one-two punch with last year’s ruling”. The article also provides broader context, noting the importance of agency powers by pointing out that “a 2007 Supreme Court ruling gave the EPA power to regulate heat-trapping emissions”.

Separately, the Washington Post reports that the Biden administration is “struggling over rules that would force US corporations to disclose more information about their climate risks and greenhouse gas emissions”. The proposed measures would require such disclosures from the companies providing roughly $665bn in goods and services to the federal government and its agencies every year, the newspaper explains. But they are facing pushback from companies, House Republicans and industry-funded groups who oppose Biden’s climate agenda, it adds.

China backs the current G20 chair India’s proposal to let nations select their own path to reduce carbon emissions instead of enforcing an end date for fossil fuels, Reuters reports in an “exclusive”. Citing Indian officials, the newswire says that India is keen on using “multiple energy pathways”, which would allow countries to choose resources including coal in their efforts towards net-zero emissions. 

Meanwhile, China Energy News carries an article analysing how the EU’s proposed carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) would affect China’s export. CBAM would mainly affect exports of steels, cement, aluminium, fertiliser, electricity and hydrogen to the EU once implemented from 1 October. The state-affiliated news website says that Chinese companies would only face limited impact in the short term, but should plan ahead to deal with issues including the “carbon tax” in the long run, the article adds. 

Elsewhere, China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE ) are collaborating to ensure the success of COP28 in Dubai, says Arab News Agency quoting a China CCTV report. China will use “its expertise in clean energy to help the UAE achieve its goal of 50% clean energy power generation by 2050”, says the outlet. The cooperation includes investing in renewable energy, encouraging sustainable transportation as well as implementing carbon absorption and capture technologies. The China-UAE cooperation on climate change “could be a global model”, it adds.

Also, Cover News, a Chinese online news website, publishes an interview with Zhang Zhen, the head of Shandong-based hydrogen research centre China EV 100. Zhang claims hydrogen is the “future of green energy” and “combining hydrogen energy and renewable energy effectively will help achieve a green transformation of the energy structure in the future”, quotes the report.

Finally, UK foreign secretary James Cleverly says he expects to use King Charles’s coronation to talk with China’s vice-president Han Zheng when he visits London this weekend. They will discuss issues on “the global economy and tackling climate change”, the Independent writes.

Florida governor and Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has signed legislation targeting the growth of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing in Florida, according to Forbes.  The anti-ESG bill, which is “set to be the model for other states”, prioritises financial returns for state funds and state pensions, prevents the issuance of green bonds and bars state officials from investing public money to promote ESG goals, the piece explains. Reuters says the bill marks “one of the farthest-reaching efforts yet by US Republicans against sustainable investing efforts, and a clear political message from DeSantis”. The article notes that many Republicans have argued that executives and investors have “lost their focus on returns as they take growing account of issues like climate change”. It notes that green bonds, for example, have been a popular way to fund renewable energy projects or lower debt costs for borrowers if they meet emissions targets. The article points out that the new law could deny municipalities access to “large pools of ESG-mandated capital”.

Meanwhile, White House adviser John Podesta has stated that the Biden administration will support Democrat senator Joe Manchin’s bill to speed energy project permits, as it would cover low-carbon projects, Reuters reports. This is in spite of Manchin’s recent comments about wanting to repeal parts of Biden’s major climate legislation package, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), it adds. Another Reuters story notes that the Biden administration intends to “defend” IRA funding for climate-smart farming if Republican lawmakers seek to cut it during negotiations for the next farm bill. The Hill reports that nine Senate Democrats have penned a letter warning against a bipartisan resolution to resume tariffs on solar imports from four Southeast Asian countries. Supporters of the tariffs, including Manchin, argue that they are “vital to protecting American solar manufacturing”, but the Biden administration argues that the current two-year suspension of tariffs gives the US industry time to build up its capacity. According to DeSmog, climate activists blockaded the White House correspondents dinner event over the weekend to protest the Biden administration’s failure to stop new oil drilling projects.

Finally, the New York Times reports that Washington state governor Jay Inslee, “the nation’s longest-serving current governor and one of the Democratic Party’s leading climate defenders”, will not seek a fourth term in office next year.

In the UK, shadow climate minister Ed Miliband from the opposition Labour party has called BP’s £4bn profits in the first quarter of the year the “unearned profits of war”, City AM reports. His party is calling for the windfall tax on energy companies to go further, with leader Sir Keir Starmer proposing that its expansion could be used to freeze council tax, the article notes. BBC News has an article explaining what a windfall tax is and what the current measures in place are. The Guardian notes that oil-and-gas prices have fallen back since last summer, “when commodity prices rose sharply after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”, but adds that gas prices “remain well ahead of where they were before the onset of the energy crisis in 2021”. It notes that BP’s profits have been described by campaigners as “heinous” and adds that the news will “return attention to the debate over whether oil-and-gas firms should face a harsher windfall tax on their profits”. The Scotsman reports that Scottish Greens have called for a “generational shift” in the way the UK taxes fossil fuel companies.

The Welsh Affairs Committee has urged UK ministers to secure the financial and land ownership agreements needed for the proposed Wylfa Newydd nuclear power project in North Wales, according to the Press Association. The committee concludes in a new report that the £20bn development will be vital if the government is to meet up to a quarter of UK electricity demand by 2050, as it has pledged. The Observer has published an interview with John Pettigrew, chief executive of National Grid, in which he says communities should support controversial expansions of the electrical grid out of a sense of civic duty. “It’s actually about energy security and affordability, and tackling climate change”, he tells the newspaper.

In other news, DeSmog reports that the Daily Telegraph’s chief interviewer and columnist, Allison Pearson, has joined “one of the UK’s principal climate science denial groups”, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), as a director. The website states that the move “adds to the influence of the GWPF in the press and potentially the amount of sway that it holds over the Conservative Party”.

The government in Australia’s Northern Territory has given the go-ahead to fossil fuel extraction in the gas-rich Beetaloo Basin, five years after a moratorium on fracking was lifted, ABC News reports. Oil-and-gas companies will be able to apply for onshore gas production projects after the government released the results of a three-year study into fracking in the region, the news website says. However, as the Guardian reports, the news also comes in the wake of nearly 100 scientists warning that fracking should be banned in the area due to the resulting climate impacts.

In more Australian energy news, the Guardian reports that the multibillion-dollar hydropower plant known as Snowy Hydro 2.0, which has been “billed as vital to support the transformation of Australia’s east coast electricity grid”, will be delayed by up to two years and “face another cost blowout”.

Legal scholars Laurence Tribe and Dennis Aftergut have written a piece for the Los Angeles Times explaining the implications of the Supreme Court’s move to reverse the so-called “Chevron deference”. The case “could well advance two long-term conservative causes: the war on government and the parallel war on science”, they explain. The lawyers warn against the implications of removing power from federal agencies to interpret and enforce laws on important issues such as climate change. Without agencies playing this role, “whole industries would be unleashed to operate free from mandates that protect clean air and water; banks and predatory lenders could operate unconstrained by requirements that protect consumers; the wealthy and powerful would make their own rules”, they write. “The easiest way for powerful economic and political interests to weaken regulatory constraints is to denigrate scientific expertise and truth itself. And the best way for them to achieve that is to enable judges to substitute their personal opinions for the decisions of expert administrators charged with carrying out Congress’s objectives.”

An editorial in the climate-sceptic comment pages of the Wall Street Journal is more positive about the news. It says that overturning, or “at least” paring back the doctrine, “would strengthen the separation of powers and individual liberty”.

The Financial Times’s energy correspondent, Nathalie Thomas, has written a piece explaining that the proposed Rosebank oilfield off the coast of Shetland is set to be “the new national lightning rod for criticism of the UK’s fossil fuel policies”. She writes that there are growing doubts among MPs and investors about how the nation’s net-zero plans can be achieved, especially as the government gives fossil fuel projects more generous tax treatment than low-carbon projects. Thomas writes: “Ministers won’t be able to head off fresh oil and gas protests without stopping new drilling – something they are unwilling to do given security of supply concerns following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But they can still win back renewables companies and investors who are starting to have doubts over the government’s commitments.” She says doing so is urgent as clean energy investors now “have attractive offers elsewhere as the US and EU aggressively court them”. Writing in Conservative Home, Anthony Browne, MP for South Cambridgeshire and chair of the Conservative backbench Treasury Committee, is more optimistic about addressing climate change. “The more involved I have got, the more optimistic I have become. It is a problem with a solution”, he writes. Browne concludes: “Fossil fuels have served us well since the start of the industrial revolution, but the fossil fuel age is coming to a close.”

In the Spectator, climate-sceptic columnist Ross Clark has a piece titled: “Ed Miliband is wrong about BP’s profits.” He says Labour ‘s shadow climate minister is wrong to call BP’s profits the “windfalls of war” because oil-and-gas prices – though still high – are now less high than they were during the first year of the war in Ukraine.

The New Yorker has published a “special issue dedicated to climate solutions”. In an introduction, the publication’s editors write: “When the crisis is in the present tense, as it is now, and the window for halting it is slamming shut, all we can aim for is action.” With this in mind, the issue explores what actions need to be taken this decade to make a difference. “In this week’s digital issue, inventive and passionate people try to solve a hard problem – maybe the hardest problem – in surprising ways. Their goal is to act quickly, in useful places: to find solutions that make other solutions possible,” it explains.

Repeated exposure to threatening climate change stories may not lead to disengagement, a new study suggests. The research used two experiments to study how repeated exposure to threatening climate change messages could influence levels of fear and personal engagement. In the first, participants were exposed to threatening climate change messages for three days in a row. The researchers found that “fear intensity did not dissipate upon repeated exposures” and that “hope was not consistently affected by message exposure”. In the second, participants were exposed to seven days of threatening messages. The researchers found that levels of fear increased, but plateaued after six exposures, while levels of personal engagement continued to increase throughout the seven days.

Giving Ethiopian farmers access to financial services such as bank accounts and mobile money services had a positive impact on their resilience to climate change, new research finds. The study uses semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to collect relevant data from farmers in the Sidama region in southern Ethiopia. The results show that “financial inclusion significantly and positively affects households’ climate resilience by increasing their asset ownership and diversification of income”, the authors say. They add: “Ownership of bank and microfinance institution accounts, mobile money services, and access to credit are the major financial services that contribute to climate resilience.”